Author's Note: Go easy on Lizzie, guys. She'll change her tune soon enough.
Ball & Chain
In the end, Jane and Charlotte found themselves resigned to 'help' Lizzie; since Charlotte was the more stoutly and scarily strong of the two, she ultimately had the task of pinning the younger Bennet to the chair while her sister wrestled off her T-shirt and jeans. Several bruises and bite marks later, Lizzie was imprisoned in flowing Vera Wang white and at the mercy of a hair and makeup team.
When her auburn locks were sufficiently pinned up to the point where escape was laughably futile, and foundation and lipstick were gingerly applied, the parade of expensive stylists left the bridal room leaving the door open for the rest of the female side of the Bennet clan to file in. Frannie battled running mascara while simultaneously hugging everyone in sight, Mary attempted to look bored as shit while bemoaning the lavender color of her bridesmaid gown (black would've been so much better), and Lydia couldn't stop talking about how big Lizzie's boobs had gotten while Kit parroted her sentiments.
"Seriously, Lizzie your tits are huge!"
"Ginormous, actually."
Cornering Lizzie on all sides, the twins leaned in conspiratorially. "He got your boobs done, didn't he?" Lydia whispered.
Kit followed her lead. "You can tell us if he did."
A glint that was nothing short of evil flashed in her dark, brown eyes and the corners of her mouth curled up. "No, the secret is, if you do this…" elbows pointed in towards her chest, Lizzie flexed her arms, "at least five times a day – totally increases your bust."
Lydia's eyes lit up. "Seriously?"
Lizzie gestured towards her ample chest. "You really need anymore proof?"
Exchanging a look with Lydia, Kit gave a small shrug of her shoulders and immediately began Lizzie's bosom-enhancing regimen.
"Okay, everyone," Jane began clapping her hands together, "I think we should all head out and take our places – give Lizzie a moment to herself."
As she ushered everyone out of the room, Jane took a second to grab her little sister by the hand and told her how gorgeous she looked and when the door closed on those encouraging green eyes, Lizzie collapsed against it with all of her weight trying very hard to stave off the tears that threatened to spill from the corners of her eyes.
Her breath came in short, panicked bursts and thoughts of setting fire to the chair that was supposed to be her ticket to freedom raced across her brain. This truly was it – good god, when she screwed up, she really knew how to do it with brilliance. Her future was comprised of five more months of swollen feet and stretch marks, followed by fifteen more filled with diaper genies, chapped nipples, and Darcy. She wanted to be dancing on bartops with Charlotte, she wanted to be living off of Ramen and booze (and coffee), she wanted to date all of the wrong people this time with Depo Provera backing her up, and she wanted the only mention of St. Brendan's in accordance with her life to have more to do with a lie to her parents about whether she'd been attending mass and confession and less about marriage preparations.
She wanted the complete non-responsibility of being twenty-one years old, but mostly, she wanted Fitzwilliam Darcy to fall off a fucking cliff. The thought of having to look at his smug, rotten, little face day in and day out made her equal parts angry and sick. Angry at herself for lacking judgment and getting mixed up with such a pompous, spiteful twat, and sick over the fact her child would have half of said pompous, spiteful twat's genetic material.
The lump in her throat refused to be swallowed and when the floodgates were prepared to burst open, the doorknob turned.
Sean Bennet poked his rumpled head inside the room. "So, Darcy's a nervous git; how are you holding up?"
She smiled, quickly pulling herself together as she let her dad inside. "I'm great. I think I'll be even better once all of this is over."
"I get ya." He nodded. "There's, a lot of people out there – all sorts of relatives of ours I didn't even know existed…"
"So, what you're saying is the open bar was a fabulous idea," Lizzie joked getting a chuckle in reply.
"Did you know that Darcy is related to that Catherine De Bourgh woman your mother watches all the time on the Food Network? I thought she brought Michael Jackson as her date, but Richard swears it's just her daughter. If you need a moment to quietly laugh at the spectacle this whole wedding business has become, then throw your eyes in that direction." Sean grinned. "I had a feeling you let your mum pick out the planner."
Taking a second to regard Lizzie with his head tilted and a warm smile on his lips, he softly asked, "So, when are you due?"
Eyes widening, she played dumb. "In about five minutes, I think. I can hear mom screaming for everyone to line up."
"Five minutes, huh?" Sean raised a brow. "You're having the baby in the first pew?"
She sputtered. "What? I…uh…"
"Elizabeth, you can fool the press, you can fool your friends, Christ, knows you can fool your mother, but you can never, ever fool me." Lovingly placing his hands on her cheeks, he continued, "When I walked into this room just now, you looked very much like a girl on the verge of a crisis and I felt the need to tell you this is not the end of the world. You and Darcy are in for an awfully big adventure, that I get the feelin' you were both quite ill prepared for, but I think in the end you'll find that this will bring out nothing but the best in the two of you. Life has a tendency to veer off into directions we weren't necessarily looking to go, but the trick is to take your lot in it, and handle it with grace and strength, and you've got those qualities in spades. No matter what, my Lizzie, I'm very proud of the woman you are fast becoming, and I can't wait to meet my grandchild."
And with that, Sean bestowed a tiny kiss on her forehead and enveloped her in a hug.
"I'm due in May," Lizzie laughed through tears as she held onto him tightly, "and you're a bastard for making me cry. Did you see how many people it took to make me look like this?"
Removing the handkerchief from the pocket of his tux, Sean gently dabbed the cloth at her wet cheeks.
"I know I'm an absolute wanker."
Though it was surely no easy task for whatever higher power happened to be in charge that day, the Bennet/Darcy wedding managed to go off without a single hitch, though, it was quite touch and go for a moment when a hysterical Caroline Bingley had to be escorted out of the church during the vow exchange.
Doves were released, the band played "All You Need is Love" nearly on cue (on orders from Richard Fitzwilliam, the tune began as Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up", because he and he alone thought it would be hilarious to Rick-Roll his cousin on his wedding day), and somehow all two-hundred and fifty guests made it to the Amada Plaza for the reception in one, impeccably dressed piece.
Darcy and Lizzie concealed massive amounts of discomfort and dislike (the later more on her end), during their first dance to Georgie's acoustic rendition of "Time after Time", and as per their nature, around 3/4ths of the Bennet's drank like it was going out of style resulting in a lot of slurred, Irish brogue filling the air, and an embarrassingly white attempt at the electric slide.
When 2:00 a.m. rolled around the ballroom finally cleared, and the exhausted 'couple' along with an equally exhausted Georgiana, climbed into the back of a limousine, and Lizzie mentally conceded that if it weren't for the fact she hated Darcy's face, the day would have actually been a lot of fun.
Georgie stretched out like a cat across the seat propping shoeless feet up against the door handle, while Lizzie and her brother took their places on the opposite side. "I still don't understand why you guys feel the need to stay at Pemberly…" she began, her mouth wide to accommodate a yawn.
"Maybe it's because my seventeen year old sister is still in town on her winter break, and I wasn't born yesterday, so leaving her on her own is out of the question?" Darcy shrugged sarcastically. "I'm not sure, though."
Georgiana rolled her eyes. "You've just avoided an argument about how I'm not in diapers anymore, be glad I'm totally drained."
"Hey," Lizzie started, draping her legs lazily across Darcy's lap, "I've never been to Napa, plus a huge ranch and servants? Sounds like a honeymoon to me. Ooh, can I get one of those obnoxious bells and call everyone Jeeves?"
"No, but we could get Caroline to teach you how to abuse the intercom and ensure the entire staff is plotting your death." He smiled.
"Even better," she quipped, earning a sleepy giggle from Georgie's direction.
"We've really got to thank Caroline one day."
Darcy practically did a double take. "What the hell for?"
"For outshining my family in the embarrassing department," Lizzie told him matter-of-factly.
"I dunno," he snickered, "Lydia was definitely not going down without a fight…"
Lizzie sighed, "I swear to god, the dress I picked out for her stopped well below her cooch; I should've known better than to give it to her more than thirty minutes in advance."
"Lydia's pretty cool, actually…" Georgie spoke up suddenly.
There was a simultaneous horror-filled shout of "Stay away from Lydia!" and Lizzie socked him in the shoulder.
"Jinx; and don't you talk about my sister like that! I'm the only one allowed to comment on her sort of very slutty ways."
"Hey, I said she was 'pretty cool', not that I'm going to take fashion tips from her." Shutting her eyes, the teen added, "Not even married for a day and I'm already getting double the overprotection; yeah, you two are perfect for each other."
The sky was fully bathed in daylight by the time the limo rolled its way through the gates of Pemberly Ranch, its occupants sound asleep – the easy chatter of the first hour or so of the trip having been traded in for snoring.
Darcy was the first to wake, his neck painfully stiff and his lap mysteriously full of Lizzie who must've decided at some point in the night that resting her head on the window was far too uncomfortable and thus outweighed her hatred for him. She stirred lightly and he held his breath; he wanted this one moment between them where she didn't have to pretend to like him, and she was too unconscious to behave otherwise, to drag on as long as possible.
She settled her face against his stomach and Darcy let out a small sigh of relief before tucking an errant strand of hair behind her ear. "You're a pathetic piece of shit, Fitzwilliam," he muttered to himself.
Georgiana sprang to life when the car at last came to a stop, loudly exclaiming "Thank god we're home!" and pulled herself upright.
Lizzie followed suit, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. Darcy met her quizzical expression with a slightly pained smile, and Lizzie silently turned away to retrieve her shoes from the floorboard.
"I ache in places I didn't know could ache," Georgie whined as she inched her way out of the backseat. "Make no future plans for the hot tub; I'm moving into it as soon as we get inside."
"Ow, ow, ow!" Lizzie groaned and let her shoes drop to the pavement. "Oh yeah, wearing strappy heels for around nine hours was a great fucking idea…"
"Georgie, you mind?" Darcy gestured toward the offending heels and while his baby sister scooped up the shoes, he scooped up Lizzie.
"What the hell are you doing?! Put me down!" she shrieked in surprise and utter embarrassment.
Smug smile firmly set on his lips, Darcy put his mouth close to her ear. "We've got a threshold to cross, honey."
Despite the pouting, the occasional fidgeting, and the ever present glare of death, Darcy trudged up the stairs down to the end of the long, winding corridor where the master bedroom was located, and all with a bundle of Lizzie in his arms. Expertly, he maneuvered a hand to the doorknob and once inside, used his foot to kick it shut.
Immediately, he dropped Lizzie on her feet. "I accept tips," he said rather cheesily.
She frowned. "That's great, because I can think of several I'd love to give you."
"Monetary only," Darcy gripped her shoulders and spun her around so that her back now faced him, "so, I'm afraid your many variations on 'fuck off and die' are unacceptable."
Lizzie ignored him. "Starting with when we're alone the pretending stops which means that all of the nonconsensual touching also stops." She paused and added almost as an afterthought, "Oh and fuck off and die."
Darcy's fingertips gently brushed the bare skin of her back as he swept her hair over her shoulder. "Sorry," he snickered.
"Tip number two: If I needed your help, I would've asked for it," she informed him, voice clipped, "and fuck off and die."
Absently, he began undoing the series of buttons on her dress. "All a part of the service." When he got to the last button just below the small of her back, Darcy lazily traced the outline of the tattoo he found there with his forefinger. "What kind of flower is that?" he asked innocently and let a self-satisfying grin break out on his face at the sound of Lizzie's breath hitching in her chest.
"Stargazer lily."
"Did it hurt?"
Lizzie stepped away from his touch not bothering to look back in Darcy's direction as she headed towards the bathroom. "Needle in skin always hurts. Thanks, I think I can wiggle my way out of this dress from here."
"Why are you so determined to think the worst of me?"
For a moment, she lingered in the bathroom doorway. "I'm not determined you make it quite easy, actually."
"And, what if I told you that unlike some people, I lack the ability to always say the right thing…" He pulled uncomfortably at the collar of his tuxedo shirt.
"Tip number three," Lizzie began slowly shutting the door, "maybe you should practice, but don't forget to fuck off and die while you're at it."
A bit of a Q & A session
Q: When can we expect new chapters or the completion?
Expect new chapters once a month (except this month, when I've clearly posted two). I've got a needy boyfriend and a bitchy boss, they both like to run me into the ground and eat up all of my free time. I've found updating once every month works for me – it's less pressure on your's truly and ensures that I don't pull my hair out. I can't exactly give you an estimate on the completion, but if this were following JA more closely, consider the wedding to be the Netherfield Ball. So, yeah the fight over Wickham wasn't my equivalent to the Hunsford proposal (hint like whoa: remember, Wickham isn't the only bad guy in this story). There's still a ways to go, but I can promise I won't leave you hanging. I love this story too much to not see it through to the end.
Q: Just how far along is Lizzie, anyway?
The story starts in October, where she is about two months along. The wedding takes place in late December basically because I couldn't think of any other major celeb besides Katherine Heigl who married in late 07 and I needed a name for the Access Hollywood spoof (oh, and I needed them to be able to get away with it without having to roll poor Lizzie down the isle). At this point, Lizzie is showing considerably, but they would want to hide it (think more along the lines of J Lo and Christina before they admitted to being pregnant). So the only real sign of how shotgun this whole affair is Lizzie's suddenly large chest. Why? Cause I love boob jokes.
Q: Dude, what is up with all of the pop-culture references? We get it…jesus.
Honestly, I'm a geek and it's the bit of my personality sneaking through. I tend to talk in references (and so do my friends/boyfriend). Recently, my boyfriend got a cracked glass at Wafflehouse which led to water leaking all over the table and as soon as the puddle headed in my direction, I told him "I'm gonna be a fireman when the floods roll back" (Buffy FTW!). It's unconscious, probably mildly annoying, but it's me and I can't help it.
One more thing, since I can't reply to ImaReader:
The wedding took place in LA, the reception at the Amada in Buena Park. I think the drive from Buena Park to Napa is around 6 and a half hours (not accounting for traffic), but there's a major jump in time that I didn't use a line break to signify. I took into account how exhausted they would be from the day (since the party didn't break up until around 2a.m.) and how uncomfortable it is to sleep in a car, and I came to the conclusion that more than likely, they would've remained passed out until the last possible minute (I know I would have).